"You don't interfere in our interrogation. I don't care who you are."
"Highest Authority does not sanction this."
"Those terrorists have an American prisoner. That sanctions everything."
"Craig Parks," Katz told Lyons as he arrived on the scene. "He's temporarily Chief Special Operations Officer."
Parks looked from the oil-smeared face of the blond American to the man he knew as Mr. Steiner. "What's going on here?"
"We're doing your work; now stay out of the way." Lyons went back to the others.
Mohammed translated the Arab's panted, gasped words to Able Team, "…an old agricultural institute three kilometers past el-Minya. Very well defended. Heavy machine guns, mines, wire. Looks like a farm. But it's the fortress of the National Liberation Front."
"Ask him about places in the city here," Blancanales told Mohammed. "Maybe they won't take the American out of the area."
Mohammed questioned the prisoner, listened to the answer. "No, their leader wants the man for bad times. Some of their people went to hideouts in Cairo. But the main force is making it to the desert…"
"You're in with them, aren't you, Steiner?" Parks accused Katz. "What are you really doing? Are you with the Foreign Service?"
"Please be calm," Katz told him.
"Calm! I have a secret team of assassins operating in my area of responsibility. Do you have any idea of what this could do to our relations with this country? When the international news bureaus get this story, the United States will be..."
"Will be nothing!" Lyons interrupted, shouting at the officer. "You're going to tell them? Are you making the call?"
"No! But it's inevitable..."
"Nothing's inevitable," Lyons countered. The warrior slung his Atchisson over his shoulder as the other men left the prisoner.
"We promised to send this guy to a hospital if he helped us. You care so much, Parks, you take care of him."
Tourniquets tied off the Arab terrorist's ankles. Forty-five-caliber slugs had torn ghastly wounds in the man's feet. Behind the moaning prisoner, a dead man lay spread-eagled on the concrete, his feet and hands shot away.
"One talked, the other didn't. Who's he?" Lyons pointed behind Katz.
Sadek watched Able Team straightening their gear. He took a pack of English cigarettes from his coat pocket. He lit a cigarette with a gold lighter.
"Sir, I should ask that of you," the Egyptian said.
"Ask him," Lyons pointed to Parks as he moved past Sadek.
The Egyptian watched Able Team and the two taxi drivers jog away. He called after them, "Police and soldiers have surrounded the block. You cannot leave!"
Blancanales called back without breaking pace. "Wanna bet?"
Parks turned to Katz, his face livid. "I'm calling Washington," he said. "You've come here and run your own dirty tricks squad through another country's laws. A country we're attempting to convince of our friendship and respect..."
"Why do you shout at me, Mr. Parks?" Katz asked him.
"Those guys knew you. You were talking with them, they..."
"Talking with whom?" Katz glanced around as if confused by Parks's question.
Parks ran into the open expanse of concrete beyond the parked trucks. His head turned from side to side as he looked for Able Team. He rushed to the nearest trucks, glanced between the vehicles. Katz followed the angry young Agency officer.
"Talking with whom?" Katz repeated.
"They're gone…"
"Who's gone?" Katz asked.
In the back of the pitching truck, Jake Newton lay utterly still. Terrorists surrounded him. He felt their boots pressing against his legs, heard the moaning and crying of wounded, the Arabic words of other men.
They ignored him. A minute or so after the terrorists had thrown him into the back of the truck, he had heard the shooting. Slugs and shrapnel had ripped through the canvas. He'd heard the screams and panic, the long firefight. Before he could summon the strength to attempt to escape, hope of rescue had ended as the terrorists crowded into the truck.
Jake faked unconsciousness throughout the long ride from the city. After careering around corners, bumping over the streets of Cairo, every turn and lurch an agony to the battered prisoner, the truck sped through the highway traffic. Which direction had they taken him? It did not matter. He had already cut the rope around his hands. When they stopped, he would try to make his break.
He listened as the truck drove through desert quiet. No traffic passed. The truck neither slowed nor accelerated, simply held a steady speed on a good road. After an eternity, the terrorists around him gathered their weapons and talked again.
Voices called out. He heard the sound of a generator. The truck stopped. He lay still, as if dead, while the terrorists left the truck. A leader shouted instructions in Arabic.
Hands jerked at his feet. As Jake slid from the floorboards of the truck, he pulled his hands from the tangle of ropes on his wrists and opened the one eye that still worked.
Slamming an elbow into a face, feeling teeth break, he grabbed at an AK, felt the stamped metal of the receiver. But he did not have the strength to stand. Blood drained from his head. His legs, still tied at the ankles, buckled beneath him. He fell into darkness before his body hit the ground.
Merciful unconsciousness sheltered the American from the kicks and punches and rifle butts of the Warriors of Allah.
15
Beyond the noise and streaking headlights of the highway, moonlit fields extended into the distance. Slouched in the back seat of his taxi, Gadgets stared out at the lights of peasant farms and villages. Some lights were the flickering amber of fire, others were electric white. Able Team had left the warehouse as they had entered, through the ancient sewer. Now they raced toward the village of el-Minya.
Would a battle at the old agricultural school end it? All through the night, as they had fought from one terrorist stronghold to another, Gadgets had considered the conflicting and confusing information. He knew the background of the groups, he knew of their involvement in many attacks against moderate Arab leaders and Europeans, he had seen their operations. Able Team had destroyed two separate gangs of Muslim fanatics. Yet he could not think of the night's actions as steps toward victory. The facts simply did not justify optimism.
Keying his hand radio, he buzzed Lyons and Blancanales. "Hey, this is the Wizard. Conference time."
"What do you want to talk about?" Lyons answered.
"All of this trash tonight. It doesn't make sense."
"Tell us," Blancanales told him.
"I want a real conference. We should stop the cabs for a second, all pile into one."
"Why?" Lyons asked. "You think they could monitor our frequency?"
"Not really. I just want to jive face to face. I got a thermos of coffee I'll share."
"Stopping immediately!"
Headlights flashed behind Gadgets and Mohammed. A half-mile back, other high beams blinked. As his taxi eased over to the side of the road, Gadgets saw the other taxis slow and stop. Lyons legged it from his car, Blancanales followed a few seconds later.
Lyons sat in the front seat. He put out a Styrofoam cup. "Where's my coffee? And I didn't come here for any criticism. I think I'm doing great."
"No doubt about it, you're doing fine."